Now What? Stone-Head Sterling Has Replaced the Pink Pound and the Singleton's Cash

Now What? Stone-Head Sterling Has Replaced the Pink Pound and the Singleton's Cash

Article excerpt

The people who sell us "impulse" products have stumbled across perhaps the last, great, untapped constituency of consumers, "the stoned". Trend analysts have finally sussed what "having the munchies" means in market terms. It means there are virtually housebound, hungry, armchair philosophers lust waiting to be sold crap food, crap games and crap telly. These temporarily dim-witted buyers are as likely to buy a Stairmaster as a bumper pack of mini-rolls and, better still, they'll eat whatever reaches them fastest. When you're stoned, you don't get all fussy and "organic" -- checking ingredients or sell-by dates. In fact, during my stoned decades, quality was never an issue -- quantity was: a phrase guaranteed to bring a smile to the lips of any corporate executive.

It feels strange consigning being stoned to my past. But, frankly, the buzz of feeling too heavy to move off the sofa, and being unable to focus on the simplest task while being prone to wonderful flights of transcendental fancy, is currently available via the sleep deprivation that arrived with my newborn.

Once upon a time, though, rolling a "J" guaranteed an evening, or even a weekend orgy of pizza and garlic bread. Followed by eight chocolate bars, the cheese at the back of the fridge melted and eaten with a spoon and a whole tub of strawberry ice cream.

Even after that mountain of food I was still interested in outdoor pursuits. So my boyfriend and I would invite other couples to join us for obsessive eight-hour-long golfing tournaments -- on the Sega Megadrive.

Now I come to think of it, I've never been as "brand conscious as when I smoked regularly. Those trend analysts are really on to something. If I ate pizza, it had to be the one that's famous for its stuffed crust. Only the crumbliest tastiest chocolate would do, accompanied by an American ice cream created by corporate hippies. …